The present invention relates to optical devices, in general, and more particularly, to optical spot displacement apparatus.
Generally, an optical interconnection or cross-connection device, like a White cell optical switch, for example, comprises a plurality of optical elements disposed in a predetermined spatial three dimensional pattern for directing one or more light beams from an input through a plurality of reflections to an output. Multiple light beams may bounce through various stages of the device simultaneously. Typically, the interconnection device allows a set of Nin optical inputs to be switched among Nout outputs in a free-space approach, in which light beams bounce multiple times in a White cell. On each bounce a given beam can be switched between different paths, and thus transferred to different outputs.
In some applications, an optical stage is included in the interconnection device to shift the position of a light beam in a particular plane which displaces the illuminating spot image thereof. Thus, this spot displacement stage may be used in the optical interconnection device to shift spot images of the light beams to different outputs. The number of outputs that can be reached is controlled by the switching mechanism of the White Cell and the particular spot shifting stage. In a binary design, the number of outputs is proportional to 2m, where m is the number of bounces.
The optical elements of current spot displacement stages are not without improvement. The present invention provides for optical spot displacement apparatus that is easily modified to produce small as well as large spot displacements, rendering an improved scaling of the displacement, which will be better understood from the description found herein below.